This is a case about an employment relationship that apparently went very, very wrong.

After reviewing the underlying facts in light of the applicable law, the Court dismissed the plaintiffs claims for age discrimination and retaliation and the defendant's claims for conversion and for breach of the return of property provision in the contract. In doing so, it rejected the arguments that a party could not file evidence in a reply brief, as well as the proposition that the local rules of the Northern District of Texas - as opposed to those of the Eastern District - applied in this case.

Remaining for trial were (1) the plaintiffs claims for declaratory judgment, breach of contract, invasion of privacy – intrusion on seclusion, conversion, and tortious interference with the contract remained live for trial; and (2) the defendants counterclaims for breach of contract regarding the full effects and best interests provision, the non-consultation provision, the confidentiality provision, the competitive opportunity provision, and the cooperation provision, declaratory judgment regarding termination for cause, breach of contract regarding the RSU forfeiture provision, breach of fiduciary duty, usurpation of corporate opportunity, and injunctive relief remained for trial.

To the right is a photograph of all of the trees that are going to die just to print copies of the court's charge in this case.

Meanwhile, across the hall, and around the corner from Judge Crone in the Beaumont courthouse, Magistrate Judge Zack Hawthorn and District Judge Thad Hartfield resolved this civil rights lawsuit against plaintiff's jailers, whom she contended were deliberately indifferent to her serious medical needs.

Judge Hawthorn analyzed the claims made against the jailers in the motion to dismiss, and submitted a report and recommendation that the motion to dismiss be granted. Judge Heartfield reviewed the report and the recommendations and found that the Judge Hawthorn had correctly concluded that the claim against defendant Black in her official capacity was barred by the Eleventh Amendment. With respect to the claim against defendant Black in her individual capacity, he similarly agreed that defendant Black was entitled to qualified immunity because the plaintiff's allegations did not demonstrate that she acted with deliberate indifference to her serious medical needs.

While noting that the plaintiff included additional allegations against defendant Black in her objections, even when those allegations were considered, Judge Heartfield concluded that the plaintiff still failed to show that defendant Black was aware of facts indicating that the plaintiff was subject to substantial risk of serious harm. As a result, the court concluded that the allegations against defendant Black were insufficient to meet the “extremely high standard” applicable to claims based upon deliberate indifference, and thus Defendant Black was therefore entitled to qualified immunity.

This is a civil rights case in which eight plaintiffs allege that they were discriminated against on account of their race while employed at Firestone's chemical manufacturing facility in Orange, Texas. Defendant Firestone sought summary judgment on various grounds.

After reviewing the applicable law and the underlying facts, Judge Crone concluded that Firestone's motions for summary judgment would be granted in part and denied in part. Plaintiff Ruffin's 2009 Title VII and § 1981 discriminatory demotion claims, as well as Plaintiffs' Title VII and § 1981 denial of overtime claims, "survive summary judgment and may proceed to trial." However, with respect to Plaintiffs' other claims, the Court concluded that there remained no material facts in dispute, and Firestone was entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

There were originally 17 actions in this litigation, which were consolidated by the four for pretrial purposes, but with venue motions to be decided in the original cases. On Friday, Judge Mitchell issued orders in five of the member cases, granting one of the motions, and denying four. On the one that was granted, the defendant had agreed that efficiency counseled in favor of the Eastern District conducting claim construction proceedings, and accordingly Judge Mitchell held that the successful movant's case would be transferred to the Northern District of California after the issuance of the court's claim construction order.

On January 18, 2014, a Marshall jury in Judge Rodney Gilstrap's court returned a verdict that the accused Google services infringed each of the asserted claims and that the asserted claims were not invalid. With respect to both infringement and invalidity, the court found that there was substantial evidence to support the jury's verdict, and accordingly denied the motion.

This is one of three cases that were filed on May 28, 2013. The court granted a stay in the other two cases pending CBM review of the patents in suit on August 14 – and by this order stayed the third case as well (it had been stayed previously on an interim basis pending the Court's ruling on this motion).

There aren't many sentences where the words "Paris" and "strip" are in the same sentence and yet we're talking about Paris, Texas (shown at left in movie poster from Paris, France. No seriously - the French Paris. They have one too).

This is a 1983 case, in which the plaintiff asserted claims against defendants arising out of an incident where she was a citizen spectator in a state district courtroom in Paris, Texas when a female Paris police officer (to aid reader comprehension I helpfully provide for reference as a recent cinematic illustration of what a female police officer in Paris looks like) took her to a restroom and strip-searched her without a warrant during a bathroom break. And people say Texas courthouses are dull places...

Defendants filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings under Twombly and Iqbal. After reviewing the underlying facts and the applicable law, Judge Bush concluded that all of the Plaintiff's claims against two of the defendants should be dismissed with prejudice for failure to state a claim, as should all of Plaintiff's official capacity claims against Paris police officer Blake, including Plaintiff's claims that Blake violated her Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to be present in the courtroom, her right to privacy under the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Ninth Amendments, her right to be free from arbitrary and unreasonable interference by the police, and her right to counsel.

The only claims athat survived were Plaintiff's Section 1983 claims against Blake individually for violation of her First Amendment right to be present in the courtroom and her Fourth Amendment right to be free from an illegal seizure of her person, as well as any corresponding request for injunctive relief.

This is a point of personal privilege, but I thought some readers might get a kick out of it.

For several days now, our oldest, Grayson, who is a sophomore at Loyola in Shreveport has been trying to figure out who to go as for "historical person" dress-up day today during Homecoming week. (today they get to dress as a historical person – tomorrow will be as a Disney character, and so forth). He knew he was going to wear his dark suit, but couldn't find a hat to go as Abraham Lincoln, and was having trouble thinking of anyone else.

At the same time, he was looking forward to the outcome of the Cowboys/Saints game last night since Loyola is pretty heavily populated by Saints fans (being as it is in Shreveport, Louisiana) while he is a big Cowboys fan (at right at his first game in 2007 in old Texas Stadium).

This morning he told us as he switched his books to his old Cowboys backpack that the big win helped him figure out who his historical character would be.

I had someone point out to me recently that the city of Plano recently renamed a street Alex Schell Place in honor of Eastern District Judge Richard Schell's late father, who was the longest appointed official in Plano's history, serving as its representative on the North Texas Municipal Water District for 45 years (a post of some import since in Texas whiskey's for drinking, and water's for fighting, as the saying - or at least the law review article - goes).

In fact, Judge Schell's family's involvement in Plano stretches back over 130 years. His maternal great-grandfather and his paternal grandfather both served as mayor of Plano. There is a Schell Elementary School in Plano, and another Schell Elementary School in Richardson, as well as a Schimelpfenig (Judge Schell's other grandparents) Middle School and Schimelpfenig Library.

Congratulations to the Schell family on this honor. I will be hunting for the street formerly known as "J" the next time I am in town.

While some attorneys have accounting or business backgrounds that provide them with the basic tools for understanding the bookkeeping and accounting processes, either for their own firm or for their client's business, many do not. For the latter, Basic Bookkeeping and Accounting for Lawyers, a short (71 pages) book by Austin patent attorney Antony Ng provides a very useful basic overview of the principles of bookkeeping, geared to the needs of a small to medium firm lawyer. The book is available in paperback, which is what I have, but is probably more useful in Kindle format.

The book starts with the most basic concepts, assuming paper bookkeeping entries for conceptual understanding, but it made particular sense to me since I recently inherited a stack of my parents' and grandparents' old ledgers and books (my grandfather was an accountant in Marshall beginning in the 1920s, and he and my dad both ran small businesses in Marshall, coincidentally both on the same block of East Austin St. that I office in today - yes, that's the Hub in the background). They made absolutely no sense to me as I was organizing them in the garage a few weeks ago, but after reading Antony's book, I can tell that reviewing them is going to be a lot more interesting now. Like most attorneys my age, I have really never had to review paper bookkeeping or accounting records – it has all been computer printouts, so the original ledger entries didn't make a lot of sense. After reading this, it does. Apparently my mother spent way too much money on clothes.